


Framing a Feeling

by TottWriter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ennoshita thinks too much, M/M, Pining, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 00:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14557215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TottWriter/pseuds/TottWriter
Summary: Ever since he was small, Chikara has looked at the world through a lens in his mind, framing moments as they might be in film.Life doesn't follow a script, though, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.





	Framing a Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> Full credit to [this masterpiece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmvVExKvGyU) for inspiring this fic. Happy EnnoTana day, peeps!

Once, far back enough in Chikara’s childhood that it had all the firmness and certainty of a dream, he’d been taken to a ball.

Well, in hindsight it hadn’t actually been a _ball_ per se, but something very much like it. A wedding reception or some sort of business evening his grandfather had been invited to, perhaps? Either way, he’d been dressed in smart but uncomfortable clothes, allowed to stay up well past his bedtime, and all around him people had stood talking with fancy glasses in their hands, speaking words he couldn’t understand. Later, they had whirled across a dance floor in suits and glamorous swirling gowns, to the sound of the kind of music he never heard at home.

Looking back, there were very few specifics he really remembered about it at all. The _feel_ of the evening was what had stuck with him more than anything. The sense he was staring into another world, one which he would never otherwise get to see. The feeling that there _was_ another world somewhere, and that if he tried hard enough, perhaps one day he’d be able to see it again.

People often accused him of daydreaming, and there was an element of truth in that. But it was hard not to, when reminders of that night would crop up in the strangest places. Little things hinting at a different sort of reality. A strong wind in the trees became the rustling of silk on a dance floor. The hush as a teacher entered a classroom turned to the silence as one song ended, and the hall of dancers awaited the next. Clear, quiet dawns when he was walking to school had that same faint surrealness as staying out past bedtime; of brushing a reality that wasn’t his own.

For a time, he lost himself watching foreign films, trying to work out which of the odd, overseas languages those adults had spoken. It was an education, certainly, although probably not the kind that his parents would particularly have approved of. Among the wide assortment of films he found gems which were by far the most interesting things he had ever seen, and which came closest to replicating the ball, even if none of them ever seemed to fit _exactly_.

Of course, as he grew older, reality asserted itself once more. Frankly, it was silly to focus on trying to reach some other world when he had his work cut out for him just in the one he lived in each day. When even his _own_ life got too hard for him, and he gave up on things he enjoyed because he couldn’t cope. The dream stayed just that, even if it never fully went away.

It was pushed aside though, because it was quiet, and ethereal, and soft, and Chikara really wasn’t any of those things. The people who surrounded him day to day _definitely_ weren’t. Karasuno volleyball team were loud, and passionate, and energetic, and at times that was overwhelming but try as he might he couldn’t stay away, masochist that he apparently was.

And moreso even than the volleyball team, _Tanaka_ was none of those things.

It was odd, Chikara often mused, that the two things which consumed so much of his idle moments should be such polar opposites of each other.

There was a sort of poetry to it though, a dramatic contrast which fascinated him endlessly. And just as he had started to envisage so many facets of his life as scenes and snapshots in a film—soundtrack; lighting; camera sweeping across to take in the key events and then panning to an artistic vantage point—he began to imagine Tanaka as the leading role he himself was not cut out to be.

To start with, of course, it was an action film. Loud and brash as its star, all garish lights and gratuitous explosions. Bold, unflinching.

But no, that didn’t work. Tanaka as an action star was too predictable, too expected—and Tanaka was not what people expected at all. His aggressiveness was a front, masking the sort of kind and loyal friend who almost seemed too good to be real. Too good for Chikara, certainly, even despite his many flaws.

Either way, the vision changed over time. From action film to arthouse vision. Black and white, stripped down to its core. Each shot carefully selected and fitted together, highlighting the side of him which was seldom on display.

And then each spike, each play, each loud moment was overlaid with simple piano, and the white noise of reality faded away and suddenly Chikara could see that other place once more.

Because Tanaka was loud, yes, but off the court that was for show. On it, that was after he leapt: _as_ he was scoring. That was when the moment—the true instant of poetry—had already passed. In practice or mid-game, as he took to the air Chikara wanted to be stood by with a camera. Wanted to capture that moment, slow it down, strip the colour and the noise and the clutter, and highlight the smoothness with which his arm swung; the arch in his back and his legs as he leapt into the air and dear _god_ it was gay but Chikara was long past caring about that.

He wanted to capture the moment while it lasted, because just as with the ball, he knew there would be a time when all he would have were dreamlike moments, half-remembered flashes across his memory. That Tanaka was not someone who would stick around in Chikara’s life.

If he were to turn his emotions into a film, short and sweet and capturing the most important things…it would end with their parting ways. Tanaka would ascend into something greater, and then the camera would pull back and as the notes of the piano slowed into nothingness, Chikara would still be stood there alone. Watching and turning away, respectfully allowing himself to fade into the background, and the viewer would know that although it had only been a short amount of time, he would live the rest of his life remembering those glorious moments together. Looking back on them fondly, but with a bittersweetness which brought a tear to the eye.

It wasn’t cowardice to stand back and say nothing. It wasn’t running away if he merely stood and spectated and pictured that other world, and perhaps _occasionally_  went so far as to imagine them both on the same stage together. Once in a while permitting his daydreams to include himself. A better version, naturally, one who didn’t flinch or shy away. One who did more than stand and daydream about films he would never make. One who was grounded in reality, and not some halfway place between practicality and make-believe.

One who, perhaps, wasn’t so far gone with young love that he managed to forget that the star of his beautiful, emotive film about poetry in motion…also happened to be a complete idiot who was head over heels with being in love. And not even, particularly, head over heels with the person he claimed to be in love _with_. Just with the feeling itself, or that was how Chikara interpreted it. And he ought to know about strong feelings, right?

So he contented himself with watching, with spectating, with holding those special moments in his mind’s eye and treasuring them. Hoping that if they were repeated enough they might lodge there, permanent enough alongside that long-distant ball that he would never lose them. And when they parted company, perhaps he’d find a way to replicate them. Perhaps he’d even move on and find a new passion. Or perhaps he’d always remember. Desaturated images with vignette corners; the essence of his teenage self.

Or perhaps…

Perhaps, as graduation approached, and he stood looking out over the town, he’d be joined for the walk home—their first without practice, now that their matches were all done and volleyball was over. Perhaps they’d walk down the hill in silence, and the lighting would be spot on, sun setting behind them and casting long, perfect shadows down the road. Side by side, step in step, no words needed for the longest time.

Birdsong somewhere and a car a few streets away. Wind rustling in the trees and _now_ is where the music starts, playing him out as their story closes, and they make idle promises to remember this time forever.

But here again, Tanaka has not read the script. And to be fair how could he, when Chikara has never shared it, never dreamed it would be needed, never imagined that he’d get this close to living it?

He won’t, either, because the script never featured this moment of indecision on Tanaka’s face, backlit by the sunset with the short fuzz of his hair lit up like a halo, or the halting, stumbling confession and stubborn set of his jaw while Chikara tries and fails to adjust his worldview in an acceptable amount of time.

But hang the script; hang the black and white and the vignette framing. Bring in the colour and they can _both_ have that sunset moment. And the camera will pull back and turn them to modest silhouettes as Tanaka wraps his arms around Chikara’s chest in the fiercest, firmest embrace and lifts him off the ground: twirling them both around in circles, almost like ghost figures at a ball.

 


End file.
